


acolyte

by asperah



Category: Cursed (TV 2020)
Genre: (Water and Fire), Angst, Church Sex, Elemental Symbolism, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Lots of storms and weather in this one, Post-S1, Slow Burn, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:34:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27460537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asperah/pseuds/asperah
Summary: He is the burning pyre, and in his dreams, he takes her every night.(Nimulot, post S1)
Relationships: Nimue & The Weeping Monk | Lancelot (Cursed), Nimue/The Weeping Monk | Lancelot (Cursed)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 178





	acolyte

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This story took way too much time to write. It was like pulling teeth, but I hope you enjoy it. It may not be completely beta'd but I'll go over things tomorrow. Also - I am using the term "fae" instead of "fey." Lots of love xoxo

**_______**

The way into the otherworld is through the lake.

A girl with magic in her bones and a crown in her heart tumbles from the rocks, and drops down from the skies to die. The mists begin to envelope as the cool springs engulf and consume her body – until she sinks and sinks and sinks to the floors of the green lake. 

Her lids falter and close, and for a moment all is lost. 

But Hidden have not released her. Death cannot claim the summoner yet, so the ferryman rejects her coin, and lets the water deliver life instead. At the bottom, the girl folds into the end to be born again. A tremor once absent beats, and the sunlight feds it strength; its synthesis compelling the brave, bruised spirit to take root and bloom – and when the fae opens her mouth, she does not drown in its depths – 

She breathes out, and drinks it in. 

**_______**

It was morning dew, the smell of fresh summer rainfall that he could taste in the grand abbey. Clean holy linen could not mask the scent. The enemy was near, and disguising itself as a servant of His Grace. 

The pull of the odour sent him walking down corridors as he searched for the source, winding down hallways and passages until he reached a bedchamber that held multiple beds. In front of the centre featherbed, he found a part of the wellspring; a dark blue mantle, soft but damp, buried deep within a wooden storage chest. Twigs and patches of dirt are found in the crevasses, the thread at the hems had loosened and split at the ends. He holds the foreign fabric in his hands, bunches up the woolen cloth and exhales. 

A terrible, cloying sweetness; his lungs are filled with it that it stretches and expands within his chest, and his mind becomes faint. 

“Sire,” a woman appears at the doorway, draped in white and gray textile. Terracotta rosary beads loosely hung around her neck. It is an elder and she gawks at him, perturbed at his intrusion. “Did you find what you needed?”

“Call on your sisters, bring them all to the foyer,” he commanded. 

“Some are in their daily prayer,” she objected incredulously. 

“Then they will break them,” the gray monk retorted, still holding the cloak in his hands. “All of them. _Now.”_

But the elder sister stays in the entryway, her long chin upright and rigid, her mouth thin and straight in a subtle defiance. The monk stars her down from underneath his shrouded gray hood, the scent of the fae girl breaking his resolve and patience. “Refuse and you defy Father Carden.” 

Reluctantly, feet begin to shuffle away from the entrance. When the nun at last vacates the chambers, he rips a piece of the fabric off from the cloak and ties it to his fingers. 

He will keep a piece of his prey before he catches it. 

**_______**

In the aftermath of his own treachery, the demon is found. Still and serene, arms open and gaze upwards, floating at the top of the open calm water, amidst large rocks and boulders. Flora encased all around her body, her wild dark hair splayed out like a lions mane. 

__

_She is lovely._

With his catch unearthed and seized, the monk looks upon her face and feels a different sort of hunger. 

**_______**

Nimue rouses in the middle of a tempest. 

The dense downpour of rain emits thunder and lightning that burst and crack loudly in the distance. 

On a massive black steed, whose laboured gait stumbles through the pools of thick sludge from the dark soil, a reserved Squirrel is seated directly in front of her in complete silence. Languish, Nimue withdraws slightly from leaning on his back. In her wounded and lucid state, she strains her tired eyes through the onslaught of swift droplets. 

The boy was awake – but burdened from the storm; his weary shoulders and frail spine slumped towards the dark coursers neck. 

As she begins to widen her eyes further and peer around, she can see that the excursion into the unknown has led them into a fen littered with reedy trees that lean and bend. On the ground, wild green vegetation pokes out from the wet surface. Sedges in brown moss, tall grass and carnivorous butterworts dominate the wet landscape. 

The squall leaves the plants wilted, with most completely submerged within deluge. 

A boom from the skies cracks down and a thin sheet of blinding light flickers from above, coating the opaque grey clouds before vanishing once more. The wailing roars from the atmosphere sends a terrible jolt through her that ricochets out, forcing her to sit upright on the shared saddle – now more alert and coherent. As she tenses her frame into a straighter position, Nimue feels a tug on her hands and notices that her wrists are bound. A double column knot; tied to pommel with a coarse white rope. The rough threads itch when she pulls against them to free herself, but the restraints are too tightly wound, and the sore blistering wounds from the arrows prevent her from mustering enough power to escape. 

Nimue looks ahead to see her captor, walking in front of the horse, leading them through the wild green thicket with the reins. _Him. The Weeping Monk._ Unhooded, the young man staggers onward. Each step he takes, the foot sinks and descends deep into the mire, right up to the shins. Even as the hard rain continued to platter loudly on her eardrums, Nimue could still catch his short breathes and grunts as he battles against the perilous grime to pull his legs out from earthy muck. 

At the opening of the thick strand of trees, a small slope greets the them. Gasping, the monk stills at the base of the small hill. In a hurried state, Nimue brings her attention back to the knots, jerking and pulling at the twine. The pain from her shoulders throbs, and she bites her lip to prevent from crying out. _There is little strength left in him,_ she thinks with relief and triumph, _weaker than me. If I can break through the bondage, I can lead the horse away from him…Squirrel and I will be safe from him._

For a brief moment, Nimue wonders if the steed would have enough energy to lead the two away from the man, but her ruminations are soon interrupted. In front of her, the monk shouts in anguish as an formidable torrent water begins to stream down the incline. The flood is too strong, too unrelenting and the water levels grow. When the downward current hits the man, his footing loosens and he collapses. 

Squirrel cries out and moves to dismount the startled horse, who starts to bray and nicker in fear. Jumping down into the flood, the boy splashes into the murky waters, revealing its rippling texture; thousands of drops create little capillary waves on the surface. 

“Squirrel…Squirrel!” Nimue shouts out to the child as he runs to the monk’s aid. “Leave him. Untie me.” 

“No!”

The retort bellows out from the boy like an rumbling earthquake. Dismayed at her friends defiance, she yanks at the rope again. “This is our chance!” Nimue orders, her tone shifts to anger. “We have to go, we need shelter. Now.” 

“We can’t leave him!” 

“Now is not the time for compassion,” she countered hotly, moving her hands to create fiction on the impediments on her hands. “Not for the likes of him.” 

“He showed compassion to us…He saved us!” he objected vehemently at her, rain spluttering out from his mouth. “He risked everything.” 

“He spared us,” she spat out, fuming. “The same cannot be said for our village, or the thousands of other poor souls who died at the tip of his blade.” 

“If we leave him here, then we’re no better than them!”

“It is the justice he deserves.” 

Inhaling and exhaling, Squirrel slumped his head down in frustrated, but enraged defeat. “Come on,” Nimue spoke up again, trying to speak softly, sighing through her aching muscles. The constant rubbing on her restraints caused her wrists to redden and throb. “Search him. He must be equipped with a weapon, a sword or two. If you find a dirk, keep that for yourself. We’ll need it later on.” 

Still standing next to the unconscious gray monk, the boy turns his back on her and kneels down, beginning his search. He reaches for the broiled leather belt fastened around the man’s waist, and extends his arms to grab the stiletto knife resting at the right side of his pelvis. 

“I’ll free you,” he replied stubbornly, holding the small sharp blade in his hand, expression filled with torment – the rain creating little rivers that line his face. “But only if you promise to help.” 

“Squirrel!” 

“We owe him a debt.”

“I owe him nothing.” 

“He’s fae kind,” the boy begged, his grip on the blade wavering as he continued with his impassionate pleas. “Ashen folk. His name is Lancelot. He’s one of us…Are you a queen to all fae, Nimue? Or just some?”

The question left her speechless. _The boy is too stubborn for his own good, too hopeful,_ she thinks taciturnly, _he does not understand the danger this proposal brings._ Shots of lightning cracked down from the vapours above, and winds began to twist and turn in every direction. With the harsh cold zephyrs and severe flooding, if the bright fulminations strike closer within these wetlands, all three of them would soon be dead. She considers the fallen man several feet in front of her; his beaten, swollen eyes now closed, little rivulets of blood running down his temple, black clothing now covered in dark wet dirt. The crying boy stood protectively over the monk, holding the criss-crossed blade in one hand. Hopeless, Nimue sighed heavily and looked up, cursing to the Hidden. There was little use quarrelling with the child, not as the weather continued to bare down on them. _Mother Nature will not pause for our plights, this will be our final day on earth if we do not seek shelter from her now._

“Fine then,” said Squirrel with resignation, interrupting her reverie, taking her silence for objection. “Leave if you want. Take the sodding horse too, but I won’t.” 

“I would never leave you.” 

“Then believe in me,” Squirrel pleaded. “Help us.” 

There was a pregnant pause, thunder rumbles long and low and the wind blows down on them harder than ever before. For a brief moment, Nimue contemplates deception. The dark part of her subconscious coaxed her to lie instead. Sell a ruse, and take the boy to safety. But one look down at the resolute child made her to disavow those thoughts entirely. Squirrel would never forgive her. With a hasty, short nod, she lifted her bound hands into the air to indicate surrender. 

At that, the boy gives a toothy, beaming grin that looks out of place under the severe storm and moves to cut her down from the horses saddle. 

The string around her wrist is cut in an instant, and she dismounts from the physically drained horse as the rain continues to fall all around them. The two begin to circle the fallen monk. Nimue starts to wrap her arms about his upper body, while Squirrel lifts each leg with both hands. It is a struggle to heave the man from the thick mud. The added weight on her injuries corrodes on her own energy and strength when she lifts – bringing forth a newer, harsher pain and she muffles a screams alongside the erupting storm as she hoists the bulk of the monk onto the steed. 

“Keep the beast steady,” she commands to the boy, tying the same piece of thread the her captor has used to restrain her around to horn, front rigging dee, and stirrup, to keep the man from falling off. 

“I will lead.” 

**_______**

An abandoned cottage built with slated stone and rotting oak offers shelter from the storm. 

It is found beyond the bog-lands, in a dense dark forest with canopied trees, thick ferns and lichens. Shielded in bright emerald moss, the hut has been left vacant for a long time, as the unlocked doorway is split and decomposed, decayed from moisture and sprouting fungi. Inside, the cobbled floor is debased with wet dirt and straw. Old iron pots and pans span across the side of the one room, and an stained featherbed mattress with numerous, chewed up holes has been tossed on the opposite end; lump-filled and worn out. 

Connected to the chimney, a grandiose hearth is positioned in the middle with wild vines growing upwards, filling in the empty spaces of the room. 

The confirmed space yields putrid air; a damp stale smell that reeks of dust and musk – it is a ruined home, but it is enough for the witch, the child and the monk to rest for the night, at least until the thunder and lightning subsides. 

Slick with both rain and sweat, exhausted from the trek and pained from her own wounds, Nimue pulls the gray monk through the threshold of the entrance. Borrowing a bit of might from the Hidden, she wrenches him forward into the padded cushion that smells like dead fowls. The tired boy enters after she has re-positioned the unconscious man so that his entire body rests on the mattress. “Go on,” she urges Squirrel, whose eyes start to close from exhaustion. “Sleep. I will handle the rest.” 

Though the boy appears visibly hesitant to leave her alone with his new friend, a great fatigue takes over his senses. Nodding, he curls up close to a dry corner to fall into a deep slumber. 

Wiping away the rain and the sweat, she casts another intention – _dry, solid wood for heat, grow for me,_ she imagines, ordering the space on the floor where earth still lies underneath to grow dry roots. She gathers off the thinner pieces for tinder and kidling. Pocketing flint and steel from her small satchel, the witch begins to strike against the metal close to the tinder nest, creating little flickers of spark close to the wide hearth. 

Soon the new home begins to glow with flames. 

Warmth and light fills the room, bringing Nimue to take her first sigh of reprieve for what felt like a lifetime. _There, that is enough. Enough for now._ In peace, she stoked the fires, watching it grow in strength. Every puff is accompanied by the sound of delicate trichomes incinerating and crackling. The smoke smell drifts out of an open chimney as strongly as an incense stick. Inhaling the fumes to calm herself – to keep herself awake, she bites through her own physical discomfort and begins to turn her attention to the gray monk once more. 

Looking down on him now – a man covered from head to toe in sludge, now visibly shaking into a fever – Nimue feels as though she had accidently stumbled into an altered world. In Dewdunn, he rose from a smouldering forest like a grim reaper to her – dark and foreboding on top a black horse as red paladins ravaged her home with holy fire. The iron hooves marching like drums on the disturbed ground, matching the thrumming of her own heart. He bowed to the red cloaked monster as fae villagers tied crosses screamed in terror as the flames grew. 

Now, all that terror and pallid fear he stirred within her had faded. 

He was just a weakened man – _a fae_ – trembling. 

On the cusp of death. 

At her mercy. 

_Let the fever take him,_ a bitter voice enters in her mind, _allow the blood to drain out. Keep the bones broken._ Oh, the thought was enticing. She could sit there, fold her legs and watch. Be the evil, god-ridden witch he believes her to be, cackle in merriment until he draws his final breath. He would do far worse to her…

He would have. 

But he didn’t, a thought whispered back to her. He saved her from the lake, even when he had the chance watch her sink to the bottom and die. 

_Try for one night,_ she reasoned with herself, _try and hope he dies anyway._

A slight groan escapes the monks lips, and Nimue bites the inside of her cheek as she watches him shudder even more. To calm him, she places her hand over his clammy, perspiring forehead, wiping away the tips of his chestnut curls away from his temple. It seemed to mollify him, at least for now. As he drifts into a calmer state, she starts to clean: using a cloth to wash sludge off his skin, unclasping the straps that hold together his dark cloak and leather vest. The task of removing all his attire turns out to be a cumbersome one, as the heavy fabric adheres to his skin, forcing her to pull and tug in order to detach them completely. 

With his upper body completely exposed, she strains to avert her eyes as she washes the blood and grim, from his chiseled torso to jawline. _It’s just flesh and blood,_ she tries to remind herself as she looks past his vulnerable, handsome face with rolling ash tears staining his cheeks. _Just flesh and blood, and he is still a monster._ The naked chest reveals the deep purple bruising and raw lacerations. Blood still oozes from the deeper infected cuts. With the slightest pressure from her fingertips, the man instinctively grunts in pain. 

The shivering becomes more pronounced as she cleans and wraps the wounds with a concoction of bay laurel and water germander underneath clean wool. When Nimue reaches the end of her treatment, the monk starts to lay quiet and still. His weak breathe short and hollow. _It is enough for now,_ she thinks as she finally closes her own lids and prays to the waning crescent that he does not survive the night. 

But the moon betrays her. 

The monk still breathes when the sun rises. 

Each morning after that – he lives on; his pulse taunting her each time, hoping to feel nothing, only to touch a beat, solid and growing stronger. 

_Curse him,_ she thinks with resentment as she dons fresh herbs over his injuries again… how could such a fate be bestowed onto such an undeserving evil beast? 

On the seventh day, he wakes.

The monk regains consciousness just as she begins to untie the woolen clothe wrappings, now spotted with old blood over his body. The eyelids lift to reveal bright, searing blue eyes; pupils scan and widen. The quick realization of where he is…and who is kneeling brings him into shock, and on reflex, he jerks his body, sending it upright. But the throbbing pain follows as he moves, emitting through his chest, shoulders and back, stalling his efforts to escape from her. 

“Stay still,” she commands with irritation, placing a hand on his collarbone to force him down onto the mattress once more. The monk flinches at her touch. The cold spurn reminds her of how other villagers taunted her, how their words were laced with hatred and disgust. How decrepit she felt under their piercing stares. “Marked by dark gods,” the elders had said long ago after the Hidden chose her. “Not fit to be the next summoner.” 

He looks at her like the others did – like she was a demon born from the darkness. Tainted and unfit to hold anything good. 

“Where are we?” 

“In the woods somewhere, close to Hawksbridge,” Nimue answers, attempting to swallow the new sadness she feels when he refuses to meet her eyes. She turns to grab a bucket of water the child brought. Fetched several days ago, after another night of rainfall. As she does this, she traces the right side of her hips, touching the small dirk that rests there. “But I have not scouted the area to see if we are close to the shoreline, or even a port. This home has been abandoned for quite some time now. Red paladins are scoping the fields, but do not venture near enough for them to detect us. For now, we are safe.” 

“Not too quickly,” she said as he made another effort to sit up. “At least one of your ribs is broken. The rest of your deeper wounds need to be cleaned, closed and dressed morning and night to avoid infection.” 

“Are you a healer?” He asks idly, scanning the broken door and then each corner of the cottage. His cold blue eyes searching for something. The rest of his clothes, his weapons, an escape plan… Hidden from his view, she lightly touches the thin hilted knife at her hips. If he decided to attack her, Nimue would be ready. 

“Not exactly, but my mother did teach me a few things before she died, when I was willing to listen,” she replies matter of factly, using her other free hand pour the water into a smaller cup. _Before your kind came to murder her,_ she thinks inwardly, now firmly holding the handle of her concealed weapon. 

“Where is Percival?” 

“Squirrel, you mean…” Nimue corrects pointedly, bringing her free hand to take the ladle to dip into the water from the bucket and pour into a clean copper cup. “He has gone to forage for food and supplies for us…and your horse.” 

“Here. Rain water, it’s been boiled and cooled.” Nimue stretches her hand forward bring the cup to his face so he can drink, only for the monk to recoil. “Stop this,” he hisses, lifting his forearm highly to reject the drink – to maintain the distance between him and her. “What is all this? Why didn’t you just leave me? You could have.” 

“Why didn’t you just let me die?” she counters, voice turning spiteful. “It certainly would have been _easier._ Now we have to deal with each other.” 

The monk does not answer her question, but stays uncomfortably silent and pivots his head away from her so he sees less of her face. 

“The truth is no mystery,” Nimue continued after a long pause. “The boy convinced me otherwise. Though I am not the heartless woman that your church touts to create fear and hate within the likes of man-folk, I am not one to bestow kindness to an enemy who has caused so much destruction and death to our kind.” 

“Aye,” the monk pipes up, shifting his head, his icy eyes glances over her for a second before turning over again. “I was the villain in your tale, the chaos to your peace,” his larynx bopping as he tenses his jaw, “as you were in mine, witch.” 

“Queen.” 

“I see no crown,” he said tersely. “Or a sword.” 

“One sword was all I needed to kill Father Carden,” Nimue spat out in response. 

The statement was meant to goad him, but she did not anticipate such a swift reaction from a wounded man. In a fury, the monk quickly moved upwards to advance, but she was quicker. The point of her knife firmly on his throat as grabbed her, halting him from moving closer. Keeping a tight grip on her, their eyes now locked in a heated stare. Faces now inches apart. The small distance sending a jolt of adrenaline through Nimue that sent her into a quiver. 

“You lie,” he sneered, staring her down. 

“Men do not compare to a pack of wolves,” she retorted in a splutter, incensed. _This is news to him. His righteous master fallen. Now he has nowhere to go, with no one to follow._ She watched as a plethora of emotions run through his face: pain, distress…anger. All broiling and bumbling in his countenance. So tangible that Nimue could practically touch the bad blood ruining through his veins – so real and raw that she desperately wanted to hold it; to harken with pure elation as she bathed in it. 

_Good. He should feel sorrow,_ Nimue decides with malice. _A man who causes so much grief should know loss too._

“You know…” she prodded on, feeling flushed with a cruel, new sort of malevolence, keeping the sharp edge rooted at the base of his throat. Just an ounce of pressure more and the skin would be pierced. “I was a stowaway in a caravan that sold leather goods on the road….So many paladins were stopping them on the borders of Grimmaire. You know the ones. Many were searched. Ours was too, by a solitary guard who did not recognize my face. Our fae pries in the tall trees said you slaughtered the lot that you found…tis a shame for you that were never able to catch me there… or in the abbey.” 

“Fortunate for you.” 

“Not even the child could have saved me then.” The very tip of the blade pricking his sweating skin, one single crimson drop falls down. “You would have killed me right there and then had you discovered me, without a second thought. My blood would have painted the ground just like the others.” 

“No.” 

“No?”

“No,” he repeats, fuelled undulating rage, but unwavering. Light azure eyes holding dark indigo blue, the monk pushes his face closer to hers, causing the knife to plunge deeper into his skin as more blood trickles down. 

“I would have taken you first.” 

**_______**

She is a beautiful spell, a pretty little thing that dwells in the bellows of the devil’s gut. In her enflamed netting, she tugs with her silken fingers further and further into the depths of hell, where he hungers to be dusted under her charred palms. 

He is certain that the allure of the witch – the loveliness of her – is a punishment from the Holy Father for his treacherous duplicity. To cleanse from the these carnal urges, Carden would have enforced a multitude of lashings to cleanse the desires from the body. “To crave is to be wicked, and the lord tests those who fall prey to the whims of hedonism,” Father would say. “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Clean the poison out, and pray for forgiveness.” 

But he does not flog. Instead, he watches from the hut, peering out from the window to see her clutch roots from the soil outside, summoning the earth to grow. Green vines begin to colour her jawline. The dirt rumbles at her touch and soon verdant buds spring forth, twisting and turning under the bright sun. There, she nurtures the birth of an great apple tree and on the dangling stems of dark branches, a horde of crisp capsules begin to ripen. 

Percival shakes the tree with glee, and the fruit fall like autumn leaves that have been tickled by the wind. With a smile and a laugh, the witch collects them all – one by one – storing each bright red bulb into large woven basket. The last she keeps in her hand, blowing on its firmness before she bites. Less dense than blood, the rosy fluid drips down her chin and hands, trickling down her moon-kissed wrist. 

While she wipes it away into nothing, the remnants start to stain the skin, giving a blush to the underside of her joints. 

Whickered container in hand, she strides past the threshold of the cottage with ease. Even as her face tilts towards hatred when she looks down on his broken body, her supple lips remain glossed over and full, like a bee sting, he does not have the will to avoid her stare. 

The wolf-blood witch extends her hand to present the bushel of scarlet orbs, placing them at his feet, inviting him to gorge. 

From Edan, the reptilian from the orchard garden beckons. 

_You are an abomination in the eyes of God._

The monk submits and sinks his teeth into the thin membrane. 

The same nectar settles in their mouths. 

In horror, he imagines the juices would taste much sweeter under her tongue instead. 

**_______**

On the edge of the forest, the three settle into a pattern of regularity in their small wooden panelled sanctuary. 

Each day, Nimue stirs when the sun hits her cheeks and commences on completing the diurnal chores around the cottage. Today, with great reluctance, she begins to work tirelessly on the gaping holes on the rotten, molding walls that encircle the little stoned hearth. Each rupture needs repairing to fence in the cold that creeps in each night. She gathers hard oak wood from the undergrowth close the opening, using lianas to festoon each one together to create a raft-like structure to hang and tie to the walls. 

After she has concealed most of the holes, Nimue conjures more fruit from the saplings and after that, she ventures to the moss covered rocks to pick mushrooms, watercress, morels, leeks and wild berries. 

When she has amassed enough food for three starving stomachs, healing herbs are harvested: chickweed, ginseng periwinkle, and dried bits of elm. The ingredients – crushed up with a mortar and pestle, and then heated over a burning cauldron – create a potent medicinal balm. The foaming, bubbling liquid is divided into two cups and served after supper; one for her and the other for the gray monk to smear over their lesions and sores before sleep. 

Some days, Squirrel joins her in these errands. Other days, he follows the gray man into the woodlands. During her isolation, there are moments that she stares into the forest, examining between each bush in an feeble attempt to locate the little fae child, visibly safe and well within the trees. 

She never finds the boy. But he comes back every night, alive and beaming, with a dead animal in his hands. The monk towers over him like a stretched out shadow. Mute and expressionless, he wipes the dark blood off his sword with a rag as the child excitedly summarizes the duos eventful hunt in the woods, pointing out each kill with elated pride. 

“That one there,” Squirrel would say with a wide grin, gesturing to the largest catch in the pile. “That one is mine.” 

Nimue knows that the boy is embellishing the truth – taking ownership of a catch that was hunted down by his newfound companion – but she plays along with his tales. The monk never corrects him either, just smiles underneath his hood and watches the two chatter away. 

A massive black-haired boar and two malnourished rabbits are brought back to the cottage this time. With great effort, Squirrel clumsily drags the huge animal down out as though it were the greatest prize of all. “Took this one down with a single shot,” he boasted, showing the arrow still wedged deep in the eye. 

“And just a batch of skinny coonies from you, monk?” Nimue jested to the monk with a bit of spite. “I thought you were a tracker.” 

It would be a lie if she did not find amusement in vexing him. 

Shortly after the first few days that he had awakened, the monk had distanced himself further and further away from her. Now he lives under the gable like a dark, ever-watching spectre. Absent throughout the day, only to sojourn by nightfall to haunt her lodgings. Though she is grateful to not see his weeping face come sunrise – the moment he returns – she wants nothing more than to provoke him. To rattle the ghost. To cut him just as he has felled her.

He never reacts – never looks in her direction and averts his eyes. But more often than not, Nimue can feel him observing her at a distance. Goosebumps prickle her skin, tiny invisible hairs on her back lift up, and cold air shoots down her spine. She tries to catch him in the act. To scold him. But as soon as Nimue turns her back to meet him, his cloaked stature withdrawals. 

After a silent supper, she hands him the putrid remedy she had made earlier in the morning, and the three retire soon in their respective corners in the one room hut. The boy is given the soft mattress, now stitched up, laid out closest to the burning fire, while the two adults sleep on bundles of hay on opposite sides of the chamber. In her area, Nimue had constructed a sheathed timber wall to provide her privacy while she undresses out of her clothing. First, she removes her upper textiles – her chemise and underclothes – to clean her wounds. The two major injuries were starting to close and heal, and the multiple blistering bruises from the cliff fall have altered in colour; turning purple to a mild yellowish-green hue. 

At the corner of her eye, Nimue can see her enemy half-undressed across the room, the shadows and firelight illuminating the contours of his bare-chest. He turns and she sees the long scars running down to his backbone, similar to the ones painted along her shoulder blades. 

_Mirrored marks,_ she thinks with slight trepidation. 

Feeling heated, she swallows her dry throat and sinks her head down into her pillow, heeding to the low fire burn through sputtering kidling. But soon the flames weaken enough for her to hear to his light haggard breathing on the other side of the room – she knows he is still awake too. 

I would have taken you first. 

Those words echo in her mind, taunting her. 

In terror, she realizes that the hunt between them never ceased. 

Another thought slowly slithers into her mind: Nimue is no longer certain that she is the one running, and he is the one chasing. 

**_______**

Before the sun rises in the sky, the monk flees to the forest to be rid of her. In the thicket and shaded grooves, where the each twig and branch is crowned, garlanded with emerald leaves, he chases down the wild creatures still tethered to the primordial world, as though he were expunging the visceral nature that now screams violently in his bones. 

With the release of his course fingers, string and wood free the iron. It flies through the air until it finds a soul to kill. Blood spills from its wound. Gutted intestines secrete out from its small abdomen. Rosy pink organs painted red poke from torn skin. The creatures panicked eyes looking up at him, its heaving breath is short and low. Death will come for this beast soon, but Life continues to keep her. She stays alive in his mind – her silhouette spinning in his mind. 

_– like vermin, the witch endures._

Her prolonged absence proves to be a nuisance, rather than a blessing. There is no comfort in retreating to the woods, nor is there any solace in the cottage. When Percival does not join him in the hunt for lean meat, he flogs in the hidden greenwoods amongst the weeds and brambles. Long branches enshrined with thorns and sharp edges are thrown in a pile, all coated in a thick strata of blood. _Drain the heathen out,_ Father Carden whispers, _she has sunken her claws in you. Pull the venom. Pure blood will flow and guide you back onto the path of righteousness, back to the love of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ._

The back is now raw. Sodden in a violent red at the end of it all. The burning, searing pain is strong enough to make him believe that he has done enough to exorcize her. But when he returns after sundown, her wildness blinds him and he is full of the aching again. 

_– the more he mines this bright little stain out, the more it harrows into a scar._

Then, an odious, wicked day comes forth. 

During a hunt, the fallen angel ushers the monk to walk past the secluded crystalline loch situated on the outskirts of the terrain. There, Satan himself guides him into a clearing, where the monk could see the witch immerse herself in its clear waters. The underclothe garment is a second veneer that clings to her taunt figure as she lifts herself up from the lake. Dark, wet hair sticks to moon skin. Dark umbra over a winters first snowfall. 

The thin effervescent piece of varnish is akin to a snakes shed skin, and it beguiles him to want and want and want. It needs to be shed, removed, torn, or ripped off – if need be. Her body must be stripped down into nothing but warm skin and bone, completely bare before him, pleading for the monster in him to reach out. To dig his fangs into flesh and steal. _Nimue…Nimue…Nimue._ His fingertips begin to shake and he turns away from the woman, sweat filling his pores. He retreats to the cottage to find himself alone, and in a state of unfulfilled lust, falls to the ground in a tired frustration. 

At night, he wraps a hand around his cock and visualises her body laid out before like a cross as he drags the tip up and down her folds before firmly sliding inside her hilt, swallowing her down whole. _You are demon born,_ Father Carden said again to him, _I spared you from the fire because you could sense your own._

_Now give her to the fire._

He is the burning pyre, and in his dreams, he takes her every night. 

**_______**

It is a month before news of the war reaches their ears. 

Word soon spreads like wildfire throughout the lands of Britannia. Sister Iris and her gold-faced warriors burn through cities like a festering disease, leaving chaos and ruin under their footsteps. The girl-child holds a long-bow and arrow, dripped in medal and gems, and shakes with pure delight – as though her body were filled with butterflies – each time she shoots. “I made the witch fall,” she sings softly, “oh I made the witch fall…fall…fall…all will be put to death…all will be stoned…all will be put to death…for I made the witch fall….necro-necro, mancer-mancer, and you’ll fall too.” 

Though many commoners keep faith with the appointed crowns firm grasp on the lands, King Uther Pendragons grip starts dwindles after each battle. Rumours of his illegitimacy failed to be extinguished, and his untampered fury descends into temporary spouts of madness. Torn leaflets toting propaganda start to populate, indoctrinating a colony of those abandon their loyalty to the monarchy led by a man unfit to rule. 

In the wake of the ongoing civil war, a rebellion rises forth; fae folk and man-blood armies have taken ports once occupied by the Germanic Ice King under the command of Arthur of Grimmaire and the infamous Red Spear.

On the eastern part of the island, a peaceful stronghold where all clans – both human and fae – is forged by the two leaders. Hastings, Grimsby and Dover offer a safe haven to those who seek to revolt. When the news hits, several nights of quarreling between Lancelot and Nimue on whether the three should stay hidden or pursue safety elsewhere follow. “There is greater risk in migrating,” he argued patently, “target that moves is easier to spot than one that stays still.” Though the monks reassurance to stay put within the cottage is enough to placate the young woman and the boy, once Percival hears more news from a travelling merchant that the Trinity Guard, along with a hoard of red paladins, will soon be scouring towns close to the wild forest, the looming threat forces them to depart to the closest harbour. 

“Best leave soon,” the older woman warned the boy earlier that day, “not even us humans are safe from their vile wrath.” 

After a seven days of on horseback, the three soon reach the nearest port. The town of Grimsby. A large stone brick wall standing a few hundred feet high encircles the city, ending at the rising cliffs and sharp crags that stand on the shorelines, shielding the inhabitants inside from enemies. Though the structure of the stronghold remains formidable, there are fresh markers of multiple battles and sieges that line the fortification. War between the fae-kind and man-blood against the Germanic soldiers loyal to the Ice King still echo across the fields. 

Large indentations line the walls from flying rocks and debris shot by rolling catapults. Massive projectile weapons still stationed along the trenches at the large wooden gate entrance. The ground layered with dried blood, and the decomposing bodies thrown into the dugouts, radiating a decayed stench that fills the air when the three approach. 

Steered on by the monk, the large black steed called Goliath advances closer to the wreckage of war laid out before them with a weakened cant. Percival sits in front of Lancelot, while Nimue hides comfortably at the back with her arms begrudgingly wrapped around his chest to stable herself from falling off the horse. When she first took her place behind the monk, she felt a sudden, strange rush that travelled down her throat. The alluring scent of him was all around her too: deep notes of smoke and vetiver lingered on his clothing. At his insistence, she wore his thick and heavy mantle. “Use the hood,” he said as he unhooked his cloak, throwing it towards her before the three began their journey. “The world stills believes you are dead. Best keep it that way until you return to the safety of your people.” 

He was encased all around her, and she hated the warmth she felt under his protection, and shut her eyes tight. _Think of Arthur,_ she thought, shutting her eyes tightly, _think of the springs with Arthur. How he loved you that night in the castle when you were queen. Think of his vivid smiles and lovely seal eyes, so dark and full of spirit._ But all she could see was cold alabaster blue encircled by dark irises amongst hot vapours, lulling her into a haunting and obscure rapture that left her enthralled. 

It is so strong and forceful that Nimue feels a sad sort of liberation when they reach their destination: the last few months of living with her former enemy, followed by the nights of confused tension and extended isolation will soon be in the past. As soon as they pass through those gates and enter into Grimsby, the fae people will celebrate her homecoming, and her true love will embrace her with a kiss and spin her round and round and round – shaking off all her disordered feelings. 

_All will be set right._

Holding longbows and iron warhammers, the guards order them to halt as they descend closer to the doorway that leads to the harbour town. 

Percival shouts back at them, “we are fae-kind. Brothers and sisters to the cause. Call upon Arthur and let us in!” The sentinels pause, one bellows at a fellow standing on a parapet above. Lancelot orders her to stay concealed under the cloak while the men shuffle and stir, bickering over whether they should allow the three to enter. Soon she hears a feminine voice bark out from the crowds above, booming low and deep, “By order of the Red Spear, you will hand over all your weapons when you enter….If you refuse, we will kill you where you stand. If you think attempt to conceal a blade, I will cut you down myself.” 

Gears begin to churn, the large gates open. Peering through the hood, Nimue can see hundreds of armed men and women surround their horse as they reach the squared market foyer, their weapons drawn from the hilt, pointing directly at them. Then, a males voice erupts from overhead, and though she cannot lift her head enough to see the face of the man who spoke, she _knows_ him and her heart soars at the sound. 

“Gray monk!” Arthur cries out. “Release the Squirrel now, or face death.” 

“Death will come for me,” the monk replied stoically, “but not by your hands.” 

“I don’t have to kill you,” Arthur countered. “I just have to give the orders. Now let the boy go free.”

The horse shuffles, hooves hit and clank against the pavement as the soldiers step closer, barbed spears tilted upright. The pressure builds and the men stiffen, alert and prepared to attack. 

“No!” Squirrel shouts back in annoyance. “I am not his prisoner, or his hostage. You won’t hurt him. No one hurts him!” 

“Arthur!” The female voice urges harshly. “This is been drawn out for too long. He is surrounded and unarmed. Take the child. Put the man in a cell and be done with this.”

There is a charged pause, and as quick as a branch snapping, several fighters start to strike. Goliath whinnies and grunts in fear, stomping his back legs to bolt upright. As the horses upper body lifts into the air, neck extending forward, Nimue uses all her strength to hold onto Lancelot as he tries to regain control of the beast, but the rearing is enough to dislodge the hood that concealed her face from the crowd. Exposed, she looks around in fear as the guards continue their assault and squeezes onto the grey man closely, her head tucked close to his shoulder-blades for comfort. 

“Stop!” 

The order is desperate, disbelieving. All around the silence breaks in the air, and mutters follow. _The wolf-blood witch,_ they say in hushed tones, with scepticism and awe, _the fae queen, risen from the grave._

Slowly but surely, Nimue lifts her head to see her beloved standing on a wooden balcony above her – shocked and frozen in place. Beside Arthur stands a beautiful woman with wild loose dreads, dosed in leathered armor. 

Jewelled and fierce, the woman warrior stares down at her with little emotion. 

But it is with the small turn, as the young woman loops her arm around his strong bicep and whispers affectionately into his ear, that Nimue feels her heart beginning to crack. 

**_______**

After just a few hours, the cracking turns into tearing. 

Now all that is left of her is broken down into brittle pieces on the floor. 

At the head of the round table made of concrete and lustered oak, the man that she loves remains seated as the rest of the counsel men start to disperse in recess. Red Spear, the woman who stayed at his side during the meeting, who takes his hand and softens under his glance, swiftly exits the room along with a few others that strictly follow her orders. As she departs, the rest of the advising men bow in reverence, as though she were an illustrious, ancient empress made from shining gold and glittering sapphires. 

For the past hour, Nimue had sat in the shadows as the members of the small assembly congress. The tale of her survival is short, and soon the conversation drifts into war tactics and politics. She becomes a forgotten memory again. A map is laid out on the table and man-blood men point and prod to different regions, using colour coded tokens to represent opposing armies. Not one asks for her views, and when she provides them without prompt, and they all nod pliantly – with condescending smile that reeks of pity as they continue to defer their individual strategies to Arthur and Red Spear instead. He is their lord. Some would say king. Whereas she was a poor magical relic, now recently unearthed; on display for the rest of the man to cast impious stares upon throughout the summit, while they all squabble, spit and disagree on which territory or kingdom to invade next. _I am not their queen,_ she thinks ruefully – hatefully, her eyes starting to water, _I am a token piece in their puzzle._

The parties appear split on the next course of action. Some demand that a direct offensive attack on at least one of the other kings campsites should occur soon to establish legitimacy, while others find it more prudent to wait. Instead, they should gain strength through occupying new townships and cities in the area. When the dispute carries on with no conclusion in sight, Arthur raises his hand to adjourn for the night. 

After bows and placations, the rest of the council leaves. Feeling forgotten, she bites her lips to stop the tears from falling, and pushes her chair abruptly. She utters terse, ‘my lord’ and moves to retire as well. 

“We need to talk about the monk,” he interrupts as she turns away. “He needs to stand trial and answer for his crimes.” 

The monk. 

_Lancelot._

Held down by at least five other men, the monk was escorted to a dungeon while Squirrel bellowed and beat the guards down; kicking, thrashing, and throwing rocks – anything and everything to make the men release his dear friend. If he goes to trial, he will surely be killed, Nimue thinks and in her surprise, her heart instantly calls against it. 

“You will release him,” Nimue replied, her tone was harsh, bordering on defensive. “He is fae. His crimes are against fae. The monk is under my jurisdiction, not yours.” 

“Your _jurisdiction?_ ” He repeated, looking baffled. “We lead a common army, a united army. A crime against one, is a crime against all of us.” 

“You speak of unification, Arthur, yet not one fae was invited to this meeting besides me,” she started, her voice rising higher and higher. The table stands between them, and he rests on his chair with both arms resting on bundles of parchment with ink-stained fingers. “Do you humans treat the fae as your allies, or servants to bow and follow whichever ruling you men decide in this room?” 

“The fae choose to fight with us. We do not force them,” he said warily, shaking his head incredulously – almost accusatory and punitive. “What has happened to you, Nimue? The Nimue that I knew would not allow this man to walk through these camps, alongside those who have lost their loved ones to his hatred. Not even for a second.” 

Arthur moves to stand, rounding to meet her, and for a moment, it is though nothing had changed between them. His handsome face shifts into the same affectionate, the same longing expression he gave her in the towns square in Hawksbridge when they first met. _‘But along came a maid with eyes like the sea,’_ he said sung to the crowds, but his eyes fixed only on her, _‘sing high lolly-low, sing my fair winter lady.’_ Nimue had felt so singular in that moment, but when he reached out to caress her arms, she remembered how he called out to the other wildling woman during the round table, muttered the name ‘Guinevere’ so low and sweetly that it jerked her entire body away. 

“Do not touch me,” she wrenched, and he winces, hurt by her own withdrawal. “Things have changed, Arthur. I spent months alone with that man. He saved Squirrel and pulled me from the waters. His punishment will be servitude, not execution.” 

“Serving is a reward,” Arthur said, gobsmacked, “that man has –“ 

“I do not need a lecture from you on his offences and misdeeds. I am well aware, but this war is greater than him….He will be useful against the paladins.” 

“We do not need him,” he insisted urgently. “Our efforts have grown....We have multiplied our resources and made allies. One single man does not tip the needle to victory.” 

“Yes, I can see that you have indeed made many friends since my fall,” she admitted, indignant, looking out into the stained glass windows instead of her old lover. “Red Spear….” She continued on with sullenness. “She is beautiful. I can see why you adore her so…” 

“Nimue, please –“ 

“It doesn’t matter.” 

“It does!” Arthur argues with vehemence, his expression contorting in pain. “I thought you were dead, Nimue. Everyone did. But even after the church claimed to have slain you….we searched day and night at those cliffs for weeks. I did not rest, nor sleep…not for a moment. And when all hope was lost, we held a vigil for you over the last full moon…I mourned for you. ” 

“And then you found comfort in another woman’s arms.” 

“And then you come back to me,” he countered, mirroring the same bitter tone. “Holding onto the enemy. A man who almost killed me. Clinging to him as though he were life itself - like you belonged to him.” 

“We do not belong to each other anymore, Arthur,” Nimue said flatly, swallowing the hurt down. On her waterline, salted tears begin to emerge, “But you made sure of that, not me.” 

Arthur stares on at her in amazement as she finished her words, and flinches when he attempts – one final time – to hold her, only to be smacked away – refused. _‘My winter lady.’_ The song he once sung to her starts to fade in her mind as she backs away from him, and there, she hears another voice, hooded in white nun robing: _“there is very little time for girl crushes. You are far too important to tie your heart to one man.”_

He had untied himself from her. 

Now, Nimue needed to let him go. 

“Goodbye, Arthur.” 

**_______**

The first person to visit him in the dungeons is the witch. The sound of footsteps draw nearer and nearer as she treads through the dirtied cells, the boots land on the stoned corridors floors in a staccato, beating down – one after the another – until Lancelot suddenly sees her. Before he can even respond, a guard moves to opens the prison gates and without a word, releases his chains shackled to his arms and ankles. 

“On my orders, you may go if you wish,” she announces, her face resolute. The maiden witch looks different now. No longer dressed in the usual skirted blue dress and brown trousers with a belt at her wide hips, she now wears light cream coloured silks; an evening attire in direct divergence to the unclean walls littered with grim, darkness and filth. Lancelot keeps his stare fixed on cobblestone floors, focusing on a small black molar beetle that scurries past the iron bars. “Or stay. There are lodgings close in town. Make it your home. It matters little to me. On my orders no one is to harm you, but I cannot prevent them from excluding you.” 

“Consider the debt, for saving my life,” Nimue states as she turns away to leave. “Repaid in full.” 

**_______**

“You keep clear of that beast,” a round fisherman’s wife barked out, pointing her bloodied fingers over at the dark hooded figure, motioning to her petite daughter as the gray figure stalked the path leading up to the sailing docks. The little girl with light tinsel coloured hair looked on as her mother gutted another mackerel from stomach to head. “A dark one, that is. Ain’t no good having a turncloak like ‘em wondering around these parts.” 

“Yes, mamma.” 

“In the ranks with the red-men, the parasites of these lands, burning it all down,” she bristled on, throwing each cleaned limp fish into a bucket. “And now our walls protect ‘em! Saunters here and there, with that sodding unruly boy wonderin’ about. Makes not a lick of sense, if you ask me.” 

“I’d say he’s fixin’ for a good scare,” an older man chimed in with twinkling eyes as he chewed on the end of his smoking pipe, his breath wreaking with the smell of tobacco. “If the council won’t steer him out, we ought to. Throw stones, like the good book says!” 

“Or beat him with rods!” 

“Burn crosses at his door.” 

“Better do all th’ee if you ask me,” the mother prattles on disdainfully. “So the wreched thing is gone ‘fer good.” 

The little girl watches the hooded gray monk silently exit the bustling marketplace, just as the beautiful witch-queen, dressed in the finest blue dress, walk towards the concentrated agora. The two pass each other and nod, her mouth turns upwards into a small smile. 

After several paces, the man secretly turns his head back to stare at the maiden – his eyes imbued with longing. 

The key has been found; the locked box now opened. 

Why the poor man lingers is no longer a mystery to the small girl…and as she listens to her mother badger on to her companion, scheming the many ways to threaten their new enemy into leaving, she doubts that any plot – even one with fire and stone – would keep this poor man away from his lady. 

**_______**

The great druid warlock arrives at the camp with a young girls severed head in his hands. Sister Iris. The new holy saviour defeated. Clutching the matted dark hairs, Merlin hurls the bloodied dismembered skull, still shielded in pale skin at the door. In his other hand, the enchanted sword is raised in the air, “behold!” he shrieks, his voice hoarse and broken as a dark hooded widow lingers in his shadow a foot away, “one more angel for the church to claim.” 

He has made one more ghost, but another one greets him above the harbours entrance. He looks up to see the face of his undead daughter, the flush of her - alive and rosy cheeked - 

When he hears the wolf-blood witch breathe, solid and clear, he crumbles to the ground, shrieking into a fit of tears. 

**_______**

As the season moves, the autumnal shift brings its first revel to Grimsby. 

The peak of the harvest has ceased, the crops in the fields have wilted. Veined roots have been plucked. Now, the darker half of year awaits as twilight casts into the skies, hailed with flickering bonfires that stretch throughout the coastlines of the beach, lighting the way for lost souls and spirits from the underworld that seek to cross the threshold, to visit the land of the living. 

As the festivities sweep through the multitude of bivouacs, the fae dance with draped garments of cocooned silks and velveteen obsidian cloaks, leaning and swaying to a loud chorus of hymns sung by altos and sopranos that echo across the softened waves. Above the merriments, a cold searing crimson plasma – like a red string – stretches across the constellations, effervescent starbursts tumble into pairs; all in a row, like an elongated heartbeat, humming and rising further into the expanse of dark space, feather dusting its cold brightness. The night devours the earth as the atmosphere bleeds out from above. 

Amongst the fires booming great, soft plumes of smoke that drift into the dark red skies, large rocks lodged in the fine white sands stand like an abandoned graveyard. The surface of the sands are disturbed by bodies moving in wild merriment and glee, all dressed in peacock garbs, their faces covered by ornamental masks. _Wicked people dressed beautifully,_ the monk thinks, all flushing into deep shades of pink from the skies – glazed over – while they slowly but surely dwindle under the influence of saccharine wine. Participating in all manner of sin and drunk on arcane ambition, the crowds succumbing to their deepest vices. 

An epicurean banquet of rich decadence has been rolled out throughout the coastline; the grandiose festivities mark the eve of the hallows, and the joining of two souls. 

A matrimonial tethering between man and woman. 

Husband and wife. 

King and queen. 

King Arthur and his fierce warrior lady – Red Spear. Queen Guinevere. 

From the precipice of the festivities where the monk stands, the newlyweds appear blurred within the crowds, roaring flames, and puffing smoke. Their crowned heads gilded with sparkling circlets, they remain seated in armchairs heavily decorated in tulips, glass wings and white moonflowers. The brides smile cracks like a cut when she peers over at her beloved king, who exudes a sort of restrained affability to the entire evening. 

The feast splayed out before the towns citizens is abundant and overripe; imbued with a multitude of sodden, vitiated fruits and meats that have been reaped from natures womb, sweating out sweetened syrup and blood from its curved fissures. Alongside the fares on the beach shore were stained tables made from yew and viridian jadeite, were garlands of gardenia florets and golden flecks are festooned around the edges, laden with the smoked scents of a myrrh resin and agarwood. Goblets bubble with molten bullion and cauldrons tussled with split tangerines, jasmine and dansuke melons that were sprinkled with a heavy coatings of exotics spices and rich saffron. The strange, dark, toiling enchantment of the evening made the monk still, and he felt the overwhelming, absolute urge to be riveted by its contents. A critical, biting voice from within his ears rings out, _“Moral integrity lost in pursuit of pleasure.”_

Frowning, Lancelot looks down at the lacquered table several feet away from him in an attempt to distract himself from Father Cardans voice, and feels his heart beating with overwhelming unease and apprehension. The wine and the fruit and the decadent sweets invite him. The drunken bodies pirouetting, the toasting, the fires and the kissing – _and he has not even seen Her yet. He should not be here….He should not be here._ Clutching a large pillar to stop from trembling, the monk closes his eyes to try and calm flooding nerves. Too many thoughts, too many thoughts all in spinning round and round in his head. They tap and stomp and twirl in the inner confines of his temple just like the fae do around the flaming beacons, swiftly tapping against skull, preventing him from taking a measured breath. 

The image looks so familiar. It comes to him like an old friend from a dark past. Shadows of fae forms outlined by fire, flailing and hollering when the heat from the holy god burned their skin and his steel released them from their afflictions. The blood spilled with each slit and slash. At his hips, he can feel his blades singing out to him as he looks out to the crowd. _We’ve got damage to do…let us take care. The night is fresh and the iron is hot, and there are oh so many demons afoot to clean._ But Lancelot holds onto the pillar instead – 

__

_All fae are brothers, even the lost ones._

Then – out of nowhere – at the same time, under the same parasecond – they have conjured up their own sacred opening together. Shrouded in darkness, the solid postern door shifts out from the shadows in their minds at their own will, half into the light and unseals itself to leave itself agape. It is just a sliver, but it is enough and the thread connecting the two resurfaces and detangles, heartstrings linking them together once more. 

Now – the monk sees the witch, and the witch sees him.

Now he can breathe. 

Since the ceremonies began, she has been lost in the sea of people, an omnipresent shadow in the crowds of fae. Before the fires were lit, the thick aromatic scent permeated the humid air; earth and camphor after rainfall. Now the bodies have parted and little soft embers seem pool around and around. The sparks whirl, only to fade to ash as it caresses her dewy skin. She is donned in gray cyan bengaline fabric that flows as she moves barefoot in the sand. Under the red night and leaves tousled in her damp loose hair, she comes before like a blooming amaranthine flower – love lies bleeding, foxgloved and in clusters, ready to be tugged from its stem. 

The stare lasts for a moment, a beat and a pause, before she turns away in haste to join her red-headed friend who drags her into a spin around one of the burning conflagrations. 

“You stare at her.”

The druid emerges on the other side of the pillared stones. The great enchanter Merlin. Vessel to black magic. An incubus’ sire, Father Cardan would mutter in spite, a _cambion._ The serving prophet to deprived kings of old and new casts a quick, devilish grin at the monk, and Lancelot cannot fight against the instinct to grasp one of the knives on his belt. 

“I do,” the monk replies, honestly. Unapologetically, he continues to keep his gaze on Nimue as she sways with the wind and beating drums. No – it will not do to contradict it. He stares at her. Every chance he gets, he stares at her. There is little use in denial now…but the admission seems to shock the sorcerer for a moment before he presses on, more accusatory this time: “You want her.” 

The song has ended, and the dancing circle has dispersed. A young girl has whispered something secret into her ear. She fondly smiles at little youngling and lets out a small chuckle he cannot hear. All Lancelot can heed is his heart thudding madly in his chest. _Yes. I do._

Shifting his weight on his staff, Merlin sniggers at his side, a bitter shriek, “…the infamous weeping monk lost in the weeds of the witch,” he says, the malevolent chuckle still running out from his mouth. Maniacal and cruel. “Your god has played a cruel trick on you, indeed. ” 

“You know nothing.” 

“Oh, I know everything there is to know about you, monk,” Merlin laments with a callous expression, now hunched over, staring him down, both hands gripping his staff so hard the white bones of his knuckles push against skin. “Your reputation proceeds you. The infamous grey man...the hunter commandeered by the church to spill fae blood….A fable, you were….” He paused and spat out, “ _were_ …So, you cannot imagine how surprised I was to see you in the flesh. How delightful it was to see the face of this tale…this zealot man – the monster parents would tell their little ones at night to keep them safe - turned to stone before my eyes! Cursed by a woman. Defeated.” Merlin sniggered aloud again in glee, tersely scratching at the wooden curvature of his weapon, still holding it tight. “You are a Skellig now, surrounded by her waters. She will erode you until you are nothing, but you will never be rid of her. She is the source of your tears now.” 

“Then leave me be,” Lancelot countered swiftly. “Misery does not need to be mocked.” 

“Oh, I will jest any man who wishes to take my daughters hand, it is a fathers duty,” he proclaimed with ease, looking out to the dancing crowds. A new hymn has begun, the lutes join the drums and the chorus start to sing a softer tune. People are partnering. The red-headed girl has reluctantly left Nimue to dance man-blood with chiseled cheek bones and wide-buggy eyes. But she is not left alone for long. Soon a two-horned fae man with an long dark beard that stretches down to his torso invites her to sway with him. “I may have to make few rounds tonight, ” Merlin added facetiously. 

Though Lancelot knows that Nimue accepts the invitation out of graceful obligation, he feels a lump in his throat when she takes the man’s hand. He tries – tries with all his might to swallow it down. But it stays there – anchored and stubbornly lodged in; full with aching. Would that he could have that hand to take…

The druid now steps away from him, staff dragging on the grounds, creating a single line in the sands as Merlin drifts further and further away until he reaches the table laden with mulled wines, powdered sweets and savory fare. He grasps a golden goblet jovially in the air, and turns to salute him. To give the monk one final jeer; “Drink to your wanton follies, monk,” he raises it further to the red night sky, so high that the drink leaks out, the colour of garnet rushes out to hit the white sands. “It is all hallows eve, after all and the spirits of the dead will cross over the barrier soon…” 

With his drink still raised to the sky, he pauses again with a smirk staining his lips. “I would mummer if I were you, best to shun from all those poor souls you have slain over the years under the good lords name. Surely they must be _desperate_ for a reunion.” 

Merlin bows with derision and signs a cross against his chest with his free hand. He gulps the drink down. Sanguine fluid dripping down his chin and neck like ichor. “Amen.” 

**_______**

As the now faint balefires glow diminishes across the seaside, the all souls night festivities have begun to fade as well. The winds fetches a cooler draft that pulls full black clouds that loom over the capital. At last, the cerise dusk skies darken into night. Citizens and fae are now clearing the remnants of food and decorations, servants start to chuck buckets of water, extinguishing the bonfires – one by one. 

Sitting alone next to an isolated fire, the furthest one along the beach, Nimue finds the grey monk gazing at the flames. He has stayed silent and unmoving since the festivities commenced. A pariah; a dark figure who observes but does not partake. In the corner of her eye, she sees him watching and waiting as she waltzes in circles, as she beams and laughs with her companions. The monk stays like an unmoving entity, lingering in the outskirts. Not a single ounce of food or wine was tasted. No single song was danced. Instead, he remains still and idle as though he were one of the raised monolith graves planted deep in the soil of the shore. Grey and tall and silent; a broken ghost buried deep in sand. 

Out of breath from an evening of dancing and drinking, Nimue feels a sort of liquid courage and begins on the path to take a seat next to him on the wooden planked bench. She feels her heartbeat quicken as the proximity between them begins to lessen and reminds herself to be brave. _Be strong,_ she thinks, _you are the wolf blood witch._ But her stomach starts to clench all the same, like it always does when he is near, and the fear that of what it all means starts to stir and stir and stir within her. Something inside her starts to scream, urging that she turn away, but Nimue subdues the voice, smothering it down with a gulp as she takes her place next to him. 

In silence, the two stare out into the fire. The bright orange and pale yellow flames ebb and flow, spitting out residual cinders. 

“To honour the dead and host a wedding in one night,” he states, breaking the long silence between them. “Seems like an odd tradition.” 

“For you, perhaps,” Nimue replied softly, still staring at the fire. “You were not brought up in our ways. For us, there is no better time for a joining. For alive souls to promise to love each other for all eternity, just as the spirits pass over to pursue their lost loves, against all life and death, to be with one another again. Even in death, we do not part...I would say, that there is no better night than tonight to love.” 

For a small moment, she thinks that her answer seems to makes him uncomfortable as he shifts slightly on the plank before settling back into stillness. 

“Do you wish it was you?” he asks abruptly, turning his head to the married couple. “With him.” 

Stunned at this inquiry, Nimue feels the shields start to form and build up around her at the emergence of such an intrusive question. _How dare he ask this…How dare he meddle in her past affairs….How dare in involve himself with Arthur. He has no place to know where my true love lies..._ She wants to be angry at him for bringing up such heartache, but she could not deny that did entertain the idea of her being the kings bride tonight. Truth be told, Nimue had imagined it many times, ever since her time with Arthur, close to the Iron Wood, where the fae celebrated a different joining. But as she watched Queen Guinevere standing regal and bright next to her former lover, she felt no sorrow or pain. 

The empty hole that had been left in her heart had been sown up. Now, it no longer felt empty. 

“We were together once…once upon a time,” Nimue admitted. “I thought it would be…but it was just a moment. Time has a way of changing things.” 

“For the better,” the monk responded in haste, looking briefly over at her and then to the crowned couple standing miles away from them. “You will forget him….unfortunately for the new queen, she will suffer as his bride.” 

“How could you say such a thing?” 

“He is still in love with you.” 

The monk says it so soberly – so quietly it barely catches under the sound of the crunching wood as it burns under the fire. He turns his head to meet her for the first time since she joined him, and gazes down at her with those penetrating icy blue eyes; intense and unblinking. She swallows, shaking her head in response but unable to break apart from his stare. 

“That is not true,” she argues, stammering the words out. Suddenly the night starts to feel much colder and she clutches the skirts of her thin dress to gain some warmth. Most of the bonfires have been extinguished now. Only six remain, theirs the last. Above, she can hear the clouds thud, foreboding a rainfall that has yet to break. “He _proposed_ to her, he is with her…it is in the past. I am no more than a memory now.” 

“A dead memory,” he repeats dryly, studying her face now. “And only in death did she succeed you, and this new queen will spend the rest of her life as a substitute, wearing a crown that he had originally forged in his mind for you.” 

“That is nonsense,” she said with conviction, and moves to look over at the newlyweds. Surrounded by the Germanic guard, Arthur and Guinevere are still seated on their thrones, collecting blessings and gifts as the disguised townspeople kneel before leaving the festivities. “Arthur choose her. Even when I came back, he is still with her.” 

“Even the finest silver cannot compare after a man has held gold for the first time.” 

The statement hits her like a ton of bricks, and she feels a lump in her stomach as the king casts a look past the citizens, over towards her. His dark eyes wistful and full of longing. _It could not be true,_ she thinks in fear, _it could not be._

“What does a monk know of such things,” she retorts with a sad grimace. 

“Nothing. We are not meant to worship the material.” 

“Best be careful then,” Nimue jeers, feeling emboldened, her forced smile controlled. The concession of his own shortcomings has been left him looking exposed for a moment – vulnerable. It makes her want to see more it, so she presses on: “That tongue of yours sounds rich with envy.” 

“There is little need to warn me of sin,” he states somberly, his tone raspy and low as he keeps his eyes locked onto hers. “I have already fallen.”

Like specks of powder, stipples of rain begin to drop down. In her dismay, her mouth opens and the monk trails his gaze down at her lips. The weather starts to chill, and even as Nimue feels goose-bumps rise up in her exposed skin, her face feels hot. _I have already fallen._ She feels frozen in place – unable to breathe or even speak. What does she say? What _could_ she say? In a daze, she struggles to respond to this admission. _It has nothing to do with me,_ she thinks, trying to reason with herself, _he is speaking in general terms. That is all._

Two bonfires still remain lit, but in a moment they are snuffed out as the clouds burst into a torrential rain. The last of the servants and disguised citizens that have endured on the coastline to clean up and toast the king and queen start to disperse into town to seek cover from the weather. Startled by the sudden storm, Nimue turns to her companion but she finds that the grey monk has already started moving to stand. Without a word, he walks away. But instead of following the rest of the people to run east into their homes, he walks westward with slumped shoulders, towards the shoreline where an solemn, tall watchtower made of stone stands atop a cliff. 

As Nimue watches him leave, she wrestles with the decision to go east or west – to follow or flee. 

She catches Arthur calling out to her, gesturing her to follow him and Red Spear, along with the rest of the guards they as exit to the path that leads into the main courtyard. But she seizes another look to the grey monk, now just dark silhouette moving further and further away from her. 

_I have already fallen,_ she realizes, breathing in and out heavily – heaving as the rain soaks her clothing, _I have already fallen too._

Resolute, she rises and heads towards the darkness. _No turning back._

(This time, she tracks him. 

Her own predation begins)

The air blows the pure lilac dress draped around her body as she steps closer to the waves, into the black mist wrought with velvet darkness. Within the heavy lining, the long hems of her dress billow alongside as she treads away from the rain and into the lighthouse, all dark with unlit corridors that twist and turn like a labyrinthine catacomb. 

The confusing network of intercommunicating enclosed, suffocating paths force the fine sheets of silk in her dress to flap, the fabric curling and curving as she moves at a rapid pace. Turning into the final bend in the stifling maze leads Nimue into a doorless opening that welcomes in a large foyer laden with rows upon rows of stone benches. As she catches a small glimpse of little bright light that seems to swell and move against the permanence of the shadows within the room, she takes a few final steps to enter the lair, only to discover that it is not a burrowed watchtower – but an old church. A ruinous cathedral, one aglow with a few diminutive candles. 

Nimue takes further strides through the crumbling vestibule, and into the nave where parishioners would stand and sit during liturgy. Looking upwards, she catches the hollowed cavities in the ceiling that reveal the stars above. Mists of the booming storm leak through in each opening, bringing a cool chilled air that surges, forcing the fine hairs on her wet skin to prickle. 

Seemingly alone, she can feel his presence in the room. Somewhere in the shadows, he lurks. She steps closer and closer into the middle of the room, towards the high alter where a large stone made into a cross at the centre is soaked in moonlight from the midnight sky. In the dark, several few feet away, his deep, tenured voice trills out behind her in a low drawl. “They executed fae in this very church…a long ago time ago.” 

“Sacrificial lambs,” she whispered softly, looking up to examine the tall monument. The sculpture of a man dying on the shape of a cross on a massive stoned platform; a few candles on his feet. “This might have been my fate” 

He does not answer her, but Nimue could see him moving and shifting about a few feet away from behind her shoulders – the great, unkept beast circling around the little mouse before taking his first bite. 

“Why are you here, witch?” 

“Why have you stayed?” She asked in frustration. It was what she wanted to ask him all along, ever since she saw him walking through the roads of town after she released him. Free and willing, he stayed. Why? 

_I have already fallen._

The epitome of pathos, Lancelot stands before her on the western side of the epistle, beyond the rows of benches. There, the monk looks more like a tortured mess than a man. With thick rivulets of hair as dense as oil, his posture remains stoic, but his round eyes were strained – almost bloodshot. Still covered in shadows, the dim glow from the little tapered candles displaying only his hooded face and his hands; a navy-coloured textile tied around his index finger and wrist. 

“I know that colour,” Nimue whispers faintly, in shock, as though she has just discovered a deep secret. “That fabric…from my cloak. Where did you get it?” 

“The abbey.” 

“And you kept it,” she finished for him. 

“Yes.” 

The words he had spoken to her before, so long ago, start to burn in her head: _I would have taken you first…. Even the finest silver cannot compare after a man has held gold for the first time._

Why do you stay? _You know why,_ the hidden, the high-pitched but soft voices of a thousand murmur out to her… _you know why the beast stays._

_He stays for you._

Tentatively, she continues to speak as she drifts closer to his tall shadow: “You said that you’ve fallen…” she says calmly, emphasizing each word, but the sinews of her larynx bob up and down with a tense nervousness. “How far?” 

“Nimue…” he says, but his voice comes out as a whimper. With the space that is left between them, she comes to him and reaches out. Lips part as their perspiring foreheads edge closer and closer to touching – just an inch more. The cold rainfall has coated their flesh. He stays frozen in place. He cannot decide if this – her coming to him - is just another one of his dreams. Growing more and more impatient, she chews her bottom lip, as though to muster up the courage to be brave and close the gap. But his stone frame stops her, her body practically squirms and he shudders; so sick with the thought of skin. 

The lilac ivory cloth of her dress melded with her skin, her physique was practically bare now; like extra tissue flowering down her thighs like alabaster rivers.

“…have you reached the bottom?” she purrs out in a sweet hush. “Could I join you there?”

_(The shield he wears is starting to break down more. Like a festering disease, the painful vibrations emulating from the inside of his heart begin to beat in a sporadic frenzy._

_He is lost without her, and he can hide it no longer.)_

“Nimue.” 

“Lancelot,” she answers softly, looking bravely up at him, her blue eyes wide and radiant with desire. Staying in the light casted by the moon overhead, another step is taken towards him, and she is just close enough to hear the sharp intake of his breath halting as she moves into the dark.

The act leave him mute. All the pent up thirst for her materialises, and propels itself into the forefront – out like an unrelenting tidal wave, or a storm soaking the dried up earth after an enduring heatwave. Lancelot moves to grab her – any part of her; waist, arms, thighs, collar. All of her beautiful bones, one by one. Each and every muscle inside him aches to hold them fervently in his arms. The rapid movement to close the gap between the two is overzealous frantic, on the verge of madness and animalistic. 

It is so quick and swift that Nimue barely has enough time to react to his advance, catching his arm as he reaches into the light out to claim her. The deafening pulse rings out at the contact between dark and light, and the aether above begins to thrum and howl. 

“Don’t toy with me….,” he said, hissing, giving her one last chance to change her mind before the point of no return. While regaining his composure, Lancelot lets his hands trail down her arms, resting firm on her hips. Even though most of his frame is wrapped, bound and clothed in black leather and wool, his free palms do not feel foreign against her abdomen. _It feels like home._ “Once the deed is done, there is no going back. _Decide._ ” 

In one sudden act, she unclasps the pin that keeps his cloak with her free hand, letting the grey robes fall in a single sweep. 

The match ignited, a roaring fire bursts out from within. 

Like a viper, he strikes. In less than a second, he closes the small gap between them. 

The beast has awakened, and within it, the flames burn wild and free. 

Suddenly, her back is firmly planted against the stone walled pillar holding the holy cross, and his mouth is on hers, blazing a fiery trail that eats her alive from the inside out. The kiss produces sweet, painful blisters on her wet mouth that make her lips feel exquisitely full. Through the urgency of the touches comes a string of wanton kisses that clumsily stop and start again as the witch and the monk madly undress one another, both attempting to dominant the other. 

“I would have hated him if he kept you,” he hissed, groaning against her lips as her hands work on removing the wide leather belt around his hips after the gloves are discarded. Amidst the frenzy and movement, the two are coated in a thin layer of sweat from the humid weather, hiding the sequence of tears that are fall down his cheeks as he towers over her. She inhales and swallows it down; the opulent scent of smoke, and the salty tears that come along with it. 

“Forget him, _please._ ” 

“Yes,” she promises him, nodding quickly, pushing him over the edge. Her vow compels him to moan, and she forces the strings on his woolen tunic down, exposing his bare chest. The threats of winning and losing no longer matter as they stir against one another, descending into an sweet, raw madness that knows no limits, no boundaries. 

__

_(The entire world could wither and die so long as he had her; so long as he could hear her making those soft little sounds in the back of her throat that left him rigid with need. His arms held her so tightly that she could feel his heart pounding through her chest, the rhythm their hearts pulsating in tandem)_

“Here is where you’ll stay,” he growls down at her, pushing her into the stone to solidify his promise. “Where I’ll keep you.” It was as though if he forced her further into the monument long enough – hard enough – she would be stuck there forever. Another deity to revere along with Christ. Until the very end of time. 

In alignment with the assault of touches and kisses, Lancelot grinds against her restlessly and she spread her legs wider, wrapping them around his waist to meet his thrusts, wanting it, needing it. Skimming his hands over the thin, delicate laced top of the gown, her breath stops as he trails his palm over her erect nipples. He travels down her body, placing soft, open-mouthed kisses over her collarbone until his lips met with the delicate fabric lining it. There, he bites through the diaphanous material, at the hardened rose coloured tips of her breasts, and Nimue moans underneath the sweet sensations as he licks and nips – deliriously, deliciously – giving a sharp intake before he pulls the gossamer textile down with his teeth. 

“Lancelot,” she breathes out, panting; halfway between a gasp and a moan, entwining her fingers his rich curls, like white gusts of wind shearing through a forest. Nimue recites his name, over and over, surrendering it up like a litany, and he moves up to catch it with his mouth. Under the kiss, he slips his hand between her warm, firm thighs and cups the wet cleft of her sex, his thumb flicking her clit until she is writhing against him, on the verge of being boneless and free under his touch. 

Nimue grits her teeth amidst the exquisite pleasure as he plunges two digits deeply inside her, while his thumb continues to shift above her wet folds, teasing out more breathes and sighs, spurring her to cry out in submission as she grips him, her erratic pleas ringing out like sweet music to his ears. 

Air escapes her lungs in a rush when his hands bunched and then ripped her dress up at her thighs. The worship beckons him down. Her exposed clit stands hard and peaked, glistening with her arousal. As Lancelot flicks his tongue over the sensitive flesh, Nimue screams and buckles while he suckles her hungrily, running his tongue up and down, tasting her honey as he carefully pressed a long finger into her warmth, groaning as her warm softness wraps around his digit. He thrusts into her gently, and she tries to bear down on him, rolling her hips instinctively. He watches her body move - excited by her rotations – and withdraws his soaked finger to lick it clean. 

Then, carefully pressing the tip of his tongue inside to collect her juices, he laps them up gently, blissfully aware that the volume of her cries as well as her movements were increasing. Like a wild animal, she claws at him, scratching his muscular shoulders until blood is collected from the underside of her fingernails. She is too hot – too ready and his own cock was thrumming with the overwhelming need of it all. 

_And he needs her. All of her. Now._ Lancelot launches himself forward, leaning to the side as the witch trembles at the sudden loss of him, and tries to reach for more of him . 

He is not done yet. 

He hoists her up, and her legs instinctively coil around his waist. Her insatiable hands travel down, unbuttoning his pants, and his cock springs out from his breeches, erect and hard. He angles it until the bulbous head of his shaft presses into her ripe entrance and then impales her tender flesh for the first time. 

The first thrust splits her in two, and the pain of the intrusion is harrowing. Glistening wetness clouds her eyes and she sobs. Nimue wraps her arms around him as he drives into her powerfully, his mouth going slack as he feels the caress of her tight, hot walls, encasing him so securely, her form sucking him in so softly – keeping him there. Complete inside her, he plunges deep, his movements becoming stronger and harder as he slides over and into her body, watching her face contorting in state of utter surrender above him, licking her tears, groaning as he takes her again and again. 

He says her name, repeats it as he pistons deeper and deeper into her tight, delicious heat as if it were a prayer. It is never enough, and he is ravenous for her. Alive. He feels complete and utter freedom within her shuddering walls, like blood being reunited with its lost bones. For Nimue, with him in her, his thick cock filling her up so perfectly, she at last feels the verve of life humming ardently within her soul, an extension of herself that lifts and elevates. 

A snake is born from the limbs that bind as they shift and contort, their heads apart but their bodies joining in the middle – like a forked tongue. 

Now one, the pair rippling and flowing over and into each other, bodies undulating with pleasure to the sounds of moans. With no semblance, he continues to thrust her into the heavy stone, gravity pulling them into a primal dance, the rhythm moving in, out and back again. Their blue eyes lock and yield – his smothered with animalistic lust, and hers soft with acceptance, closing only when the bliss is too great to bare. He runs his frenzied, wild hands over her soft curves, traveling up back to her loose brunette hair, untying the bands to let the strands fall down as he pistons into her; gasping and growling as he penetrates her softness over and over. Nimue fervently cants against him, emitting low, sharp moans that match the visceral ardor of his continuous penetration into her wet heat. 

“Yes,” he cries, holding her so softly, fucking her so hard, fast and quick that she could hardly breathe. “Take it. Please. Take me in…don’t let it go.” 

She answers him with her lips, and the pressure intensifies and builds as their mouths seal into a chaotic, untidy kiss. Lancelot’s hard thrusts jerk her whole body upwards. The wicked aroma of their surrender wafts through the air as he tenderly nibbled at the tip of her breast, taking her harder, thrusted faster until a scream erupts from her lips. One long, frightening moan that she did not even attempt to suppress she clenches uncontrollably all around him. Her head thrown back, her eyes shut tight only to see blinding lights beneath. 

Her own orgasm spurs him on, and after pounding through her warm, wet channel as it clamps around him, the release is builds and builds, blissfully reaching its threshold. Following a few more slow single thrusts, he spills into her and the two huddle into a heap, completely winded and spent. He stays inside her, limp and panting softly into her damp, cool body, sending her little caresses of adornment that paint over her beautiful naked skin and half torn dress. 

Breathless, Nimue casts her gaze up through the open parts of the ceiling – into the black abyss of the night – to see that the now stormless, dark sky was clear. 

Heart still pounding against her chest, Nimue’s fingers travel up to the gray tattooed tears under his bright blue eyes and smiles in joy as their bodies shake against one another. Both fumbling like newborn foals, they sink to the floor from exhaustion. 

“You,” she murmurs, trembling. “I found you.” 

“All I have is yours,” he recites to her, shivering as he grazes her cheeks, holding her tightly in his arms. Lancelot traces the marks on her shoulders as brushes her fingers through his thick hair, as though she were placing a crown on his head. “And glory has come to me through them.” 

For the first time, their souls were lit with glowing lanterns 

– and there, once-lost, the two found each other at last, in the depths of the dark.


End file.
